Spiritualism
Spiritism is the ancient practice trying to communicate with the death, through a "medium".
"Spiritualism", is Spiritism, but under the form of a Christian worship... it is "a deception", because some people may think they are attending a Christian service while they are going to get hot Spiritism. And it is a "sacrilege" to use Christian methods and objects to deliver Anti-Christian Spiritism... The church may include a pulpit, pews, crucifix, and organ... the service resemble the gatherings of a Christian church, using the Bible, with Christian payers and songs... but it is Spiritism!... with "trances", "psychic readings"...
"Condemned in the Bible", with strong words, "it is a prostitution against God"... "they shall be stoned to death"!... "If any turn to mediums and fortune-tellers, prostituting themselves to them, I will set my face against them, and will cut them off from the people... A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned to death, their blood is upon them" (Leviticus 20:6,27</span>)... and it is called "an abomination to the Lord" in Deut.18:12.
Luke 16, clearly illustrates that an impassable gulf separates the dead from the living. And if they could return, Jesus declared that anything the dead may say would have no ultimate moral consequences on the living (Lk.16:31).
The ancient belief was popularized by sisters Kate and Margaretta Fox, 12 and 15 years-old, 1848, in Hydesville, New York, with the famous "rappings" supposedly coming from a peddler who had been murdered in the hose some years previously. In 1888 the Fox sisters confessed that the rappings were accomplished by a method of cracking their toes. The sisters work out a code: One tap: No; three taps: Yes.
"Jesus", for the Spiritualists was a man, not God. While on earth, he was a prophet or an advanced medium, one believed to communicate with the spirit world. Jesus is now a spirit that one can communicate with in the spirit world. No Virgin Birth, no redeeming cross, no resurrection, no Second Coming.
"God", is an infinite spiritual intelligence, an impersonal power controlling the universe.
"After-life", in planet earth continues in the spirit world. Heaven and Hell do not exist, they are states of mind.
"Today", there are less than 10,000 hardcore members of Spiritualistic churches, though church officials estimate more than 500,000, in the USA, England, France, and Brazil. In the New Age the word "medium" is changed for "channeler".
Literature: Spiritualistic Manual, Aquarium Gospel of Jesus the Christ, Oashpe, the Bible.
Address: National Spiritualistic Association, in Washington , DC . Morris Pratt Spiritualistic Institute in Whitewater , Wisconsin , USA .
Spiritism, is the third kind of the Occult: Divination attempts to foretell the future, Magic to change it, Spiritism tries to communicate with the death to receive information and help from them.
Spiritualism, is Spiritism, but with the sacrilege of using Christian rites and prayers, misleading some ignorant attendants, specially in the Spiritualistic Churches, whose meetings may look like Christian services.
There are many interesting phenomena related with Spiritism, often a fraud: 1- Materialization of spirits, Ectoplasms, Auras, Apport, Ghosts, Hunted Homes, Saints, Angels, Devils, Apparitions, Visions, Reincarnation... 2- Ouija, Psychics, Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Levitation, Bilocations, Mesmerism, Psychometry...
We will comment them.
Contents
Membership:
Spiritism may be mankind's oldest religion. Today there are an estimated 70 million Spiritists, popular in Brazil, England, France...
- There has been an explosion of "Spiritualist Churches" in the last century, with taxes exemption status.Churches In "America":
- The "National Spiritualist Association of Churches" was the first founded in 1893, with 300 churches and 10,000 members.
- The "International General Assembly of Spiritualists": 250 churches and 200,000 members. - The "Universal Church of the Master" (UCM), since 1908, with 300 congregations, 1,300 ministers, and 10,000 members. The school for ordination of spiritualist ministers attend the Morris Pratt Spiritualist Institute in Whitewater, Wisconsin.
- The "National Spiritual Alliance of the USA" has 40 churches with 4,000 members.
- There is also the "Great World Christian Spiritualist Assembly", but nothing of "Christian", it is just a deception!.
"SPIRITISM"... AND "CHRISTIANITY":
- The Bible and the Church, condemn all kinds of Spiritism and mediums with the strongest terms: It is "prostitution against God", "stone them to death" (see the Occult). "Child of the Devil", reprimands St. Paul to the medium Bar Jesus in Acts 13.
- If you attend a Spiritualist séance, or service, or consult a Psychic, you can't receive the Eucharist; before receiving Communion you have to repent and confess that "very grave sin".
- You can not be a Spiritualist and a Christian, both are totally opposed and contradictory, as much as Satan is opposed to God: Either you trust in Satan or you trust in God, but not both at the same time.
The Greatest Difference:
The greatest difference between Christianity and Spiritism is that in Christianity the supernatural manifestations and the prophecies are made by God, and in Spiritualism by Satan, through living mediums contacting fake spirits of the death...
... and Satan can simulate many supernatural manifestations of God, like the magicians did in the times of Moses, using living persons, as reported in 2 Thessalonians 2:9: "the work of Satan, using all kinds of counterfeit miracles and signs and wonders, and every kind of wicked deception" (Exodus 7, 2Cor.11:14, 1Tim.4)...
... Everybody, says the Bible, is "a child of God", or "a child of the Devil" (1Jn.3:10)... you and I, right now, are either "a child of God, or a child of Satan"... if you and I are "in the grace of God", we are "children of God"; if we are "in sin", we are "children of Satan"... You can not be both at the same time!...
Other Big Doctrinal Differences:
- "Jesus Christ", is a total different person for a Christian and a Spiritualist: For a Spiritualist Jesus is God, but as much as you and I are God, as much as every human being is a divine child of God, just a part of the Infinite Intelligence.
- Jesus did not pay for our sins on the cross, he did not redeem us, his crucifixion was no more than "an illustration of the martyr spirit".
- There is no actual Hell, no ultimate judgment of man's life in Spiritualism.
- Original sin and Virgin Birth have no place in Spiritualism.- A Great Deception:
A great deception of Satan is the claim of the Spiritualists that the Bible is Spiritualist: They claim that "Jesus Christ was the master medium of all time"; they point to the Transfiguration as an example of spirit materialization, and Pentecost as the greatest séance in history... in fact, they make the Bible endorse what its writers emphatically oppose!...
Mostly a "fraud":
All the physical or psychical manifestations of Spiritism and Spiritualism is the deceptive work of the Devil... most of them are "lies", and "the Devil is the father of lies", so, they are also of the Devil. - Harry Houdini, discovered the tricks of all the mediums willing to be tested...
- The magazine "Scientific American", in 1923 offered $5,000 to any medium who could satisfy a committee of scientists, and $5,000 at that time was big money... nobody could earn the award, all of them were found to be frauds.
The "Creed" of Spiritualism:
Spiritualistic churches have codified their beliefs in "7 Principles":
1- The Fatherhood of God. 2- The Brotherhood of Man. 3- Continuous Existence. 4- Communion of Spirits and Ministry of Angels. 5- Personal Responsibility. 6- Compensation or Retribution Hereafter for Good or Evil Done on Earth. 7- A Path of Endless Progression.
The first two are exactly the same as those of Masonry... besides, they have "9 Articles", but also in so general terms, that it looks like almost anything can be validated with them.
THE SEANCEV
The "séance", is a gathering of spiritualists to receive messages from the spirits, usually in small groups, but also in churches. It is the essence of spiritualism, talking with or receiving information from the death.
- Most of it is fraud, unpredictable, but very interesting. Most of the people attend a séance for curiosity, or for comfort, the desire to communicate with a loved one who died...
... Th New Age influenced people are not seeking comfort, but power and money... don't attend a séance, it is of the Devil, and you are going to get deceived and burned!.- In a "séance": The participants sit quietly in a circle, in dimly lit surroundings. Lights may appear, ghosts may materialize, a trumpet may convey the message of disembodied speech, objects may levitate...
... The "Medium", is the center of the stage: He is a person on earth who is sensitive to vibrations from the spirit world and is able to convey messages between that world and this one and to produce other spiritualist phenomena: He may start with the "ectoplasm", the foul-smelling, milky-white substance that exudes as an umbilical cord from the medium's mouth, and it is said to be an energy form that will not function properly without darkness.
... Or the Medium may be taken over by a "spirit control", who is a spirit that answers through the Medium all inquires of those gathered.
... A "spirit guide", is usually a departed human being who speaks through the Medium.
- In the New Age terminology, the name "Medium" has been substituted by the word "Channeler", a more contemporary, scientific term, who is like a human telephone connecting the living to the spirit world.
- There are reports of other physical and psychical phenomena, most of them a fake: ...
"Poltergeists", are ghosts making much noise, moving objects; "levitation" of objects or persons; "Apport" is the production of objects without physical means or the passing of objects or humans through walls...
... "Materialization", is the appearance of a spirit in matter; "telepathy" is the communication of ideas through other than physical means; "clairvoyance" is seeing through means other than the physical eye; "clairaudience" or hearing without the ears; "psychometry" is to foretell a person's future by possessing an object belonging to that person ... and lately, there has been an explosion of "spirit healings", or "spirit helpers" to get rich, or famous, or to solve any problem... anything that can bring money!...
- For Spiritualism, a "spirit" is the essential part of man. After the death of the body the spirit lives on. The "spirit world" is the world of spirits without bodies.
The Séance in churches
The Séance in the churches usually mimics Christian services, they are boring, not so much fraud but hysteria... but always the work of Satan.
- The services, resemble the church gatherings of small Christian denominations. The furniture may include a pulpit, pews, a crucifix, and an organ. But members receive "spirit greetings". The presiding minister's sermon may be delivered while in a trance. Psychic readings replace prayer, and familiar hymns such as "Just As I Am" and "Holy, Holy, Holy" have subtle lyric changes to avoid affirming Christian doctrine.
- The services are very variable: Usually, a small group of middle-aged women make the bulk of the audience. After a set number of hymns, they settle down to the address of clairvoyance given by the visiting medium, who talks about vibrations, astral bodies, and she begs the hearers to make themselves receptive to the loved ones on the other side... nothing could be more pathetic or boring!...
- They are generally not devious individuals, though many are enticed into the darker realm of black magic. They are often kindly people, who make warm friends and bow to promote morality for the common good... but their good intentions can not remove the fact that Spiritualism is always the work of the Devil, and they can not remove the sting of death, the result of sin!... only through repentance and faith can the resurrection of Christ offer hope.
HISTORY:
Most ancient civilizations practiced Spiritism.- Kate Fox (1848):
Although spiritualistic practices seem to be widespread, they were virtually unknown in modern civilized society until March 1848 when odd happenings were reported at the house of a farmer named Fox in the small town of Hydesville, in the New York state, USA: Previous occupants of thee house had been disturbed by unexplained raps at night. Kate Fox, the youngest daughter, was said to have successfully challenged the supposed spirit to repeat the number of times she flipped her fingers. Once communication had apparently been established a code was agreed upon which the raps given could answer questions: One rap means "yes", two raps means "no"... and the spirit identified himself as a man who had been murder in the house. His name was Mr. Splitfoot, and later a skeleton was dug up in the basement.
- Two other sisters joint Kate: Margaret and Leah. In 1855 Kate and Margaret publicly admitted at the New York Academy of Music that they themselves had caused the rapping noises with their toes. Later they retracted this confession, claiming to have been bribed into making it originally. Both sisters died alcoholics with dipsomania. They gave much of their lives to acting as mediums in the USA and England, and Spiritism flourished through the world.
- The tale of the Fox sisters spurred immediate interest, and the revival of Spiritualism was underway. Four years later, in 1852, a Spiritualist Convention was held in Cleveland with additional impetus, with the help of Horace Greeley, the editor of the "New York Tribune".
- Much of this activity was motivated by mere curiosity and the fascination of the supernatural, but it had a more serious intention. Many inquirers wished to convince themselves as to human survival of bodily death; others felt comfort to communicate with their departed love ones; others wanted information about the future life...
The "Spiritualistic Churches",
were born to fill these needs, in the late 1800s, with tax exemption. We already mentioned the Membership in America.- Andrew Jackson Davis (1843):
Five years before the Fox sisters, Mr. Davis, a cobbler in New York, claimed to be a medium. He wrote "Principles of Nature", a Spiritists classic.- Allan Kardec, in France, since 1856 gave impetus to the Spiritualism, with his theory of the transmigration of souls. His "Book of the Spirits" is considered by many as the Bible of Spiritism. - Home and Eusapia, became famous mediums: Home levitating to the ceilings, and Eusapia making objects move with a mere glance.- Shirley MacLaine, in the 1980s, with her books "Dancing in the Light" and "Going Within" are popular examples of how Spiritualism finds expression in the New Age umbrella.
"OUIJA" BOARD:
A small board with letters and numbers used to contact the souls of the departed. Participants sit at a table around the Ouija and place hands on a "pointer". The pointer moves through numbers and letters communicating with the spirits... don't try it!... it is not a game. Satan only wants an opening to get you!.
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E- Mail to: J. Dominguez, M.D. Last edition: May, 2006